


His Metronome Steps

by beautifulboimckinley



Category: The Long Walk - Richard Bachman
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Missing Scene, Style Imitation Practice, Tiny Fandom (I know)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 12:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulboimckinley/pseuds/beautifulboimckinley
Summary: Garraty talks and thinks and walks and walks and walks.





	His Metronome Steps

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this a little less than a year ago as a way to practice dialogue, style, and characterization with one of my favorite books of all time. I didn't post it then because I didn't think it was good enough, but I reread it and I think it's worthy of being shared. I hope the inhabitants of this tiny, tiny fandom enjoy!

Ray Garraty noticed the ache that laced the arches of his feet with a solemn animosity that felt like ice-cold water in his veins. Despite the onslaught of pain that arrived with every step, rhythmic and deep like the bass lines he heard in his father’s records, he somehow could not shake the numbness that froze every muscle and bone in his body. He felt as if this was Purgatory or Hell, that perhaps he had already bought his ticket and he was walking in the afterlife. And what if he was? Would The Prize be Heaven, or life? He mentally slapped himself at the introspection. Not like Olson, he promised, and accelerated his pace to catch up with McVries. 

As he approached him (and Baker, and surprisingly Stebbins, who seemed determined to smile his little smile and crawl underneath Ray’s skin), a sudden fear that McVries was already dead punched him in the nose. He reached his hand out, fingers splayed, and touched Pete’s arm so lightly he barely felt it. But he did feel it, and the goosebumps that decorated his friend’s hardened skin soothed his nervous fingertips. 

“McVries?” He muttered, not sure if he would even hear.

“Yeah?” Pete turned his head towards Garraty and furrowed his brow. “What’re you worried about on this fine afternoon?” 

“Oh, good. I was scared you were like Olson.” He exhaled and massaged a tightened strip of muscle in his neck. Having drifted to the other side of the road, but still listening intently, Baker chuckled.

“Garraty, if Pete goes crazy, it’s gonna be his choice,” He yelled over.

“Damn right,” McVries mumbled, “damn right it’s gonna be my choice. If I was as selfish as I should be, I’d have done it already.” He opened a tube of concentrate and held it in his hands for a second as if it were something alien. As an afterthought, he squeezed a dollop into his mouth and closed the tube. 

“You already are crazy,” said Garraty with a sardonic smile, but the pang of relief that came with McVries’ sanity made his voice come out monotone. Stebbins giggled like a girl and said some psychological crap (wasn’t that all he said?), which Ray was too tired to try and comprehend. Seemingly bored with the Musketeers, he put his hands in his purple pockets and let his pace slow, carefully and precisely, until he had again taken his place in the back. 

“I didn’t know you talked to Stebbins,” Garraty remarked when he was sure he was out of earshot. McVries hummed and jostled his packsack on his shoulders. 

“I figured I should say a few words to him before I die. That way I can brag to the devil that I knew this year’s winner.”

“Why are you so sure you’re going to hell?”

“I’ve outwalked most of them.” A shadow of somberness fell over his face, accentuating his now-sunken eyes. “I don’t deserve it, Ray. The ones who did all burnt out early, save you, probably. The nice ones, it’s too much for them.” After a few seconds, he lifted his head up and smiled bitterly. The shadow stayed put. 

“Jesus.” Said Garraty, forcing out a dry laugh. “Why am I the moral one here? What makes you so sure I wouldn’t use my Prize for a mansion and gold-plated teeth? 

“Would you, though?” 

Garraty pondered that for a few moments and stared at his shoes.

“Well,” He said finally, “I guess not. Anyway, what were you and Stebbins talking about?” Tension still hung over the pair like a stubborn stormcloud, and he was desperate to move the conversation along before the thunder rolled in.

“You know, I’m not really sure.” McVries shrugged and grinned. The scar that adorned his cheek seemed to laugh with him. 

“Yeah,” Ray said, “that boy’s a mystery.”

“A mystery,” Pete echoed, and then walked away. Out of the corner of his eye, Ray could see him playing coin-toss with Abraham and Baker. He sighed, frustrated with himself for expecting a proper answer from McVries.

Alone with his metronome steps, Garraty felt a twinge of sadness for the boys playing their schoolyard game. Vainly, he tried to imagine them dying - warning 1, warning 2, warning 3, then the soldier would raise his gun with a steady finger on the trigger and aim and - when it came time to envision the life draining from McVries, from Abraham, from Baker and Parker, to picture the mailsack thud and the bloody road, to picture walking along the pavement without them, his sneakers trailing crimson, he found himself wincing and abandoning the image. 

There was no abandoning the Long Walk, though, not with Jan and his mom waiting in Freeport. Garraty shook his head and took a swig from his canteen. The sound of gunfire that shook the street refreshed him more than the metallic-tasting water in his mouth. It was a reminder that some poor boy just bought it. He was alive and now he wasn’t, the shot rang out and he was dead, and in his hometown some shit memoir about him would be published in the papers. He had bought a ticket and so could Ray Garraty, good old 47, “Maine’s Own”, and so could McVries and Baker and Abraham and Stebbins and all the rest, 99 would die, 99 would be  _ murdered _ , and just because his idiot brain couldn’t comprehend it, it didn’t make it any less real. 

He had another drink of water and refastened the canteen to his belt. 

“Garraty!” A cheerful voice called out his name and startled him out of his thoughts. 

“Yeah?” 

“Baker and Abe, they owe me $5.00 combined. Stupid of them to try and beat me in a game of coin-toss.” 

“That’s a game of luck,” Garraty replied, voice flat. 

“Well then,” McVries laughed heartily, “I guess Lady Luck is on my side, even though half my head doesn’t want her to be.”  _ Just go on dancing with me like this forever, Garraty, and I’ll never tire.   _

“What’s the point of being owed money if you’re never gonna get it?”

“Ray, darling, won’t you ever understand symbolism?”  _ We’ll scrape our shoe on the stars and hang upside down from the moon. _

“Nah,” Said Ray, thinking of English class lectures, “I don’t think I will.”

“Ray, you ever read up on the first Long Walk?” Pete grinned as Ray shook his head. “That’s what I thought. Now that I think about it, I don’t recall ever learning about how this death march started.”

“It’s ‘cause the Major wants us to think it’s as old as time, Pete, not just something that started one May.”

“Oh, Ray,” Said McVries, with the sad ghost of a smile on his face, “it is as old as time. It’s always been here, boiling and bubbling and festering into this goddamn hellscape.” 

“Okay, you’ve spent too much time talking to Stebbins,” Garraty said crossly, “and I’m sick of all that psych nonsense.”

“Why is that, Garraty? What do you think?” McVries twisted his voice into a spot-on impression of Stebbins, and Ray couldn’t suppress a chuckle. 

“Jesus,” said Garraty between laughs, “I’m gonna take a nap, make sure I don’t catch any warnings.” He punctuated his request with a laugh, trying awkwardly to indicate the ridiculousness of the request.

“Okay,” Said McVries. He looked peculiarly serious. Garraty shivered and closed his eyes. As he tried to wrangle down his thoughts, he realized just how weird it was that he was going to sleep walking. His brain wasn’t supposed to do that - while sleeping, he knew his brain should keep his heartbeat and breathing and digestion and all that crap moving. That was what it was meant to do. But now on a fluke his steps had become akin to breath and heartbeat, so his brain, oh his loyal brain, decided to keep his feet moving too. His brain wanted to stay alive. McVries had said that he wanted to die but no, he wanted to live, and here was the proof right here! The Science of the Long Walk. That, he thought, would be a magnetic headline, or book title. That’s a book I would read, he said to himself, and then he thought about Harkness writing it. Was Harkness any good at writing? Or was he a fake? Well, it didn’t matter now, did it? Harkness had been shot like a hunted deer. Poor, poor Harkness…

He deflated. With his eyes closed, the weight of his tiredness doubled, and he prayed that nobody would buy a ticket for a while, if only not to hear the gunshot. He held up his fatigue for a few long minutes before his neurons sighed in relief and his mind let go of its grasp on his body. And then he didn’t feel like he was walking anymore; he felt his weary bones settle into a thin layer of mattress. There was the press of an IV in his arm, pumping precious nutrients into his bloodstream, the elixir of life. Beeps and whispers and whirrs decorated the white hospital silence. Slowly, Garraty opened his eyes and squinted at the light flooding his vision. He heard a voice, only he couldn’t place who it belonged to. It said:  _ You’ve won, Ray, you’ve won, you’ve won, what’s your Prize, Ray, what’s your Prize?  _ Then it morphed into a familiar voice, McVries’, and Garraty sighed. He suddenly felt his feet moving and the soreness lacing his muscles. 

“Ray,” Pete whispered, “you’re gonna get warned if you don’t speed up.” Startled, Garraty nodded and blinked himself awake. 

“Morning, McVries.” He groaned and nibbled on a cracker. “What time is it?” He tried checking his watch, but his bleary eyes could not read its face. 

“If I tell you the time, you’ll just be mad.” McVries shrugged. Garraty slumped and resigned himself to the fact that Pete was right - it had been ten minutes at the most, and his surroundings had stayed painfully stagnant during his nap. 

“I guess so.” He paused. “I mean, it was a bad idea for me to sleep anyway. I had almost numbed myself, and now I’m back to square one.” 

“Garraty,” Said McVries, “you do that and you’ll buy yourself a ticket because you won’t hear the warnings.”  
“Jeez, how long have you thought about this crap?”  
“We’ve had a month, Ray.”  
“Sure.” He shook his head. “You know, I can only take so much of this at once.”

McVries smiled. “Mhm, well, sucks for you. We don’t get rest stops.” 

“We get one.” 

“Fair point, Garraty, my boy.” Pete shouted for a canteen with a voice like desert wind. “Goddamn, I really am thirsty.” 

Without a word, Ray walked away. Absentmindedly, he ran a hand over the faint stubble on his chin. He let himself drown in the pitter-patter of footsteps that tapped the pavement like rain on a rooftop. Trying to distract himself from the monotony surrounding him, he thought of his Prize. But he couldn’t think of it, could he, without thinking of McVries’ lively eyes and imagining them clouded over, empty,  _ dead _ . Like Scramm’s eyes were, only Scramm had dead eyes before his heart stopped beating. Garraty reckoned that eyes were truly the part of your body that was alive - when they died, you were dead, no matter how many brain waves and breaths there were on the monitors. He suddenly wished he had a mirror so he could look at his eyes. Was he dead yet? 

“First warning, 47, first warning!”

Garraty raised a middle finger but still sped up. 

Was he dead yet?

“Nice one,” said Baker and chuckled.

Was he dead yet?

Stebbins waved from the back.

No, he wasn’t. 

**Author's Note:**

> Since this was largely a way for me to practice parts of writing I'm less confident in, I would really appreciate feedback! Thank you for reading!


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